Welcome to the Cake Decorators Q&A

I have a unicorn birthday cake to make and would like to know whether I can pipe rosettes etc onto sugarpaste (as the unicorns mane) using buttercream without slippage, or would royal icing be a better option. Many thanks.

Hi Lynda

Lots of people do pipe buttercream over sugarpaste without any problems. If you’d like to use Royal icing which doesn’t become brittle, beat in a teaspoon of glycerin to 450g of icing and pipe as normal.

I use 2 large egg whites, 450g icing sugar and 1 teaspoon glycerin. Beat together to piping consistency.

Hi, thank you for your reply it’s greatly appreciated. Will try the royal icing as I’m a little apprehensive piping with buttercream being a novice. Ive watched YouTube tutorials and it looks straightforward but don’t want to end up with a bedraggled looking unicorn and a disappointed Granddaughter.

Good luck Lynda. Hope your Granddaughter loves her cake. 🙂

Thank you